


Bad Habits

by TenSpencerRiedPlease



Series: Differential Equations [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Bisexual Bucky Barnes, Celestial!Peter, Humor, I Don't Even Know, I really have no idea how to tag this, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark Friendship, M/M, Random & Short, Sassy Peter Quill, Tony Being Tony, dragon!Tony, its just some random thing that turned into a new random thing, so uh i hope you like it, werewolf!Bucky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-04
Updated: 2018-01-04
Packaged: 2019-02-28 04:21:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13263588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TenSpencerRiedPlease/pseuds/TenSpencerRiedPlease
Summary: Tony walks in to find three people in the living room giving each other suspicious looks, which doesn’t really bode well. He hoped this wasn't some kind of species conflict given that Tony damn well knew that red head was an elf. Humans don’t come that pretty or that graceful.“Um… hey,” he says, barely resisting the urge to flinch as three people turn in sync to face him.“So what are you?” the red head asks. Well okay, species conflict it is, fan-fucking-tastic.“Dragon,” he says though he doesn’t mention that he basically came in mini. Being a dragon sounded way more badass when you didn’t know said dragon could be dwarfed by a large house cat.The red head rolls her eyes, “great, now we have to deal with a hoarder,” she mumbles.





	Bad Habits

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea what this is. The general prompts I went with were university and urban fantasy. This has a lot more UF than it does any kind of uni themes though so.
> 
> Anyways, I hope you like it!

Tony walks in to find three people in the living room giving each other suspicious looks, which doesn’t really bode well. First of all he already knew that he was probably the youngest person in the damn house, but he didn’t really want to find out he was the youngest in a house full of people who hated each other. Bonus points for some kind of species conflict given that Tony damn well knew that red head was an elf. Humans don’t come that pretty or that graceful.

“Um… hey,” he says, barely resisting the urge to flinch as three people turn in sync to face him.

“So what are you?” the red head asks. Well okay, species conflict it is, fan-fucking-tastic.

“Dragon,” he says though he doesn’t mention that he basically came in mini. Being a dragon sounded way more badass when you didn’t know said dragon could be dwarfed by a large house cat.

The red head rolls her eyes, “great, now we have to deal with a hoarder,” she mumbles.

“Oh come on, better than elves. You’re all a bunch of pretentious fucks,” he says. It wasn’t offensive it was _true_. Elves had a superiority complex and that was way more annoying than a hoard Tony didn’t even have.

“That is _not_ true!” she says and Tony rolls his eyes.

“Spoken like a true elf,” he mumbles.

“Yeah, I hate to break it to you but he’s right, elves are assholes. You’re all ‘we’re pretty so we’re all better than you bow down and kiss my ass,’” the tall blonde says in a falsetto tone, waving his hands around. The small blonde to his left looked offended, which didn’t even make sense because he definitely wasn’t an elf.

“Are you telling me you’d rather live with a _hoarder_? You know how likely it is for a dragon to get psychological help for their hoarding? You’re literally more likely to fuck an alien!” the elf says.

“First of all I don’t even _have_ a hoard so that’s just offensive,” Tony tells her.

“Oh, as opposed to your totally non offensive declaration that elves are assholes?” she shoots back.

“Well you are,” he points out, “and you started it.”

The small blonde pinches the bridge of his nose, “oh my _god_ would you three shut up? Not all elves are assholes and apparently this dragon isn’t a hoarder. Lets just get our shit put away without the fighting, alright?” he asks.

“So what are you?” Tony asks out of curiosity.

“None of your damn-” he starts but the taller blonde cuts him off.

“He’s a pixie in case his tiny size wasn’t an indication,” he says, earning a _deeply_ offended look from the pixie. “And I’m a celestial. Well, part celestial but I can do all the cool shit so it counts.”

Tony raises an eyebrow because celestials were… rare. Very rare. “How the hell did that happen?” he asks.

“Dunno, but mum had no idea she fucked a celestial until I started making dick topiaries in the back yard. They were awesome and I’m still a little offended that she cut them down just because our stupid neighbors complained about them.” Dick topiaries? Tony was about eighty percent sure a topiary was some kind of plant but he doesn’t feel like asking and looking like an idiot.

“You’re a fucking idiot,” the red head says and the blonde raises an eyebrow.

“Are you making a case for how elves aren’t all pretentious assholes? Because you’re not doing a good job,” he tells her.

“Just shut up and go unpack your shit. And refrain from telling the whole damn neighborhood I’m a pixie,” the small blonde says. Tony shrugs and takes that as his cue to find his room.

For the most part he doesn’t run into any more trouble though he learns the pixie, Steve, has a werewolf best friend. The elf was named Natasha and she probably wasn’t horribly pretentious because her best friend was human and her other friend was a brownie- a type of fairy. He had been rather offended that Peter, the celestial, had been excited about not needing to do household chores if he left Phil some milk and cookies. This pissed Tony off because the first thing anyone with a half a brain knew about brownies was that they didn’t fucking clean if they felt they were being misused. He also discovered that his roommate wasn’t moving until the next day, which gave Tony ample time to take over the whole room and to set up his heat lamp.

He can hear more people bustling around in the house but he leaves them be in favor of the heat lamp because it’s been awhile since he warmed his scales and also because he didn’t think he’d get the opportunity once he got a roommate snooping around his space. He was hardly about to admit how tiny he was to _anyone_ but especially not someone he had to live in close proximity with. So before he gets stuck dealing with whomever he strips down and changes into his dragon form so he can enjoy a little heat before he got stuck with someone constantly in his space.

*

When Tony wakes up its to a loud squeal, “oh my god he’s so _cute_!” He blinks slowly awake and lets out an annoyed growl when the flash of someone’s camera goes off basically in his eyes. By the time he blinks the flash spots away he finds Natasha level with his eyesight. “You’re the cutest dragon I’ve ever seen!” she says.

Tony lets out the most ferocious noise he could manage because dragons were _scary_ , not _cute_. They lit knights asses on fire for trying to rescue princesses, they knew riddles and stuff, and they were bigger than castles. But they were not _cute_.

“Wow, even his growls are cute,” someone else says. Tony turns to find a tall black guy grinning down at him and he’s had enough of this. He sucks in a deep breath and lets out a ball of flame that only makes Natasha laugh.

“He’s trying to be intimidating, that’s funny,” the guy that was with Natasha says. Tony supposes with his luck this is his new roommate.

Instead of arguing how terrifying he was, and he totally _was_ , he jumps off the desk he was currently perched on and changes back to his human form, hands on his hips as he does so. His new roommate makes a disgusted noise and shields his eyes but Natasha doesn’t react. Probably because elves preferred nudity because they were vain and thought their bodies were works of art to be showed off. To be fair they weren’t entirely wrong about that.

“Dude I haven’t even known you for five minutes and I’ve seen your balls, what the hell?” his roommate asks.

“Consider it payback for calling me cute. Now get out of my room so I can put clothes on,” he tells them both.

“First off this is my room too, second, exposing us to your naked glory is indecent exposure not payback put some damn pants on,” his roommate says.

“I can’t talk as a dragon, how the hell else was I supposed to defend myself? And you’re currently standing on my jeans,” Tony tells him. He looks down and steps off Tony’s jeans, kicking them in Tony’s direction so he could put them on.

“This is Tony, by the way, and Tony this is your new roommate James,” Natasha says.

Tony wrinkles his nose, “we already have a James, got another name you go by?” he asks. Technically the other James went by Bucky but after he found out Justin Hammer’s middle name was James he held a personal vendetta against the name. Because fuck Justin Hammer.

“Usually Jim not that it really matters,” he says and Tony wrinkles his nose.

“Jim is the name of a forty year old pedophile, got a last name?” he asks. Natasha snorts and covers her mouth to avoid laughing and Jim looks offended.

“Rhodes. My last name is Rhodes,” he says.

“Great, I’m going to call you Rhodey now. And by the way my size as a dragon does not leave this room or you _will_ regret it,” he says in a very serious tone that Natasha and Rhodey obviously don’t take seriously. And this was why he didn’t show people his dragon form, then they all thought he was cute and cuddly. He’s a _dragon_ , even the little ones could be dangerous and he didn’t like being underestimated.

*

“Hey,” Peter mumbles at him around a massive bite of the disgusting looking sandwich he was holding. Tony wrinkles his nose as Peter continues talking, “I heard you were basically three feet long in dragon form. Is that true?” he asks.

Tony couldn’t fucking believe that was an over exaggeration. It had to be the work of Natasha because as it turns out the elves are pricks stereotype was true and she was no exception. “That’s total bullshit,” Tony says because _technically_ that’s the truth.

“He’s not lying,” Bucky says as he walks into the kitchen. Fucking werewolves and their freaky hearing. Of course he’d notice if Tony’s heart skipped a beat when he lied and probably a bunch of other creepy stuff too. Yesterday Bucky told Peter to quiet his masturbation sessions, which would have been enough for Tony to die of second hand embarrassment alone, but the fact that Peter lived across the house and on a different floor made it worse. Peter, on the other hand, was shameless about the whole thing and told Bucky to buy earplugs. Turned out Bucky already _had_ earplugs but still.

“Great. So that means you’re smaller, right?” Peter asks, grinning when he realized he had a human- figuratively speaking of course- lie detector in the house.

“No, it doesn’t,” Tony tells him, nose in the air.

“Liar,” Bucky says, snickering under his breath. Tony flips him off.

“So like how small are you? Pocket sized? Because that would explain why you have no hoard, all you’d need is a coin,” he says, laughing at his own stupid fucking joke.

“I am not pocket sized, asshole. And I don’t hoard money.” He was rich yeah, his father had a thing for money, but Tony’s thing was inventions, which he had many of. He could store that all digitally though and he did so Natasha whining about hoarding was useless _and_ offensive.

Bucky looks him up and down, “your cloths suggests _someone_ you know hoards money. So what do you hoard?”

“Not all dragons hoard stuff, Bucky. That’s just a stereotype,” he says. It wasn’t, literally every dragon he knew hoarded _something_. His mom seemed to hoard charities of all things but at least she did something useful and good with his father’s hoarded cash. They had _way_ more than they’d ever even _begin_ to need.

“Is not, every dragon I’ve met hoarded something. Can’t be worse than the dude I met that hoarded his own semen,” Peter says and Tony and Bucky gag in sync because that was fucking _vile_. “Yeah you two look disgusted but you didn’t have to smell it. Trust me that makes it worse.”

Tony almost feels bad for Bucky as he turns a gross shade of green but he’s pretty sure he’s turned the same color. “So are you as green as your face as a dragon?” Peter asks, thankfully removing the previous image from their heads at least momentarily.

“No I’m red and gold,” he says. “And my hoarding habits wouldn’t land me on a TLC show.”

“You sure, because _Hoarders_ is almost all dragons,” Bucky points out.

“And humans. And that one weird episode with that elf who hoarded dolls that looked like herself,” Tony says, wrinkling his nose at the memory of it. If he had a guilty pleasure for bad TLC shows so be it. Everyone had something.

Peter snorts, “I remember that, and she threw fire balls at the therapist who kept trying to make her throw them out. Guess she ended up in jail for you know, assault with deadly magic. I read that her family threw out all the dolls when she was in jail,” he says.

Jesus that was an adventure. But, Tony reasons, most dragons were nothing like that and had mild if not completely meaningless hoarding habits. They were nothing like those weird dragons that were on TV giving the rest of them a bad name. “Okay well I’m not about to get put in jail for trying to torch someone,” he says. Minus that little display of ferocity that didn’t even work on Natasha and Rhodey but he wasn’t trying to hurt anyone so it totally didn’t count. “And I don’t have a hoarding problem.”

“He probably hoards something lame like beta fish and won’t tell us because of how stupid his collection is,” Peter says to Bucky, who frowns.

“A hoard of beta fish would actually be kind of cool as long as they were kept in proper tanks and stuff,” Bucky says.

“I don’t hoard beta fish,” Tony says.

“Fine, then he probably hoards bottle caps, or left shoes, or raccoon paws or something dumb,” Peter says, waving a hand around.

“Okay I hoard invention designs and they are all good, thank you very much. Who the _hell_ hoards left shoes or raccoon paws?” he asks.

“I met a guy who hoarded James Franco memorabilia. His ultimate win would be to actually hoard James Franco,” Bucky says.

“Yeah, that’s what we in the real world call a stalker,” Tony says. He’d know, he had a few people who hoarded things related to him too and they were all fucking creepy.

“Whatever, point is dragons hoard weird shit,” Bucky says.

“And werewolves sniff butts, we all do weird stuff. Does anyone know if Phil cleans at night because this place is always spotless,” Tony says. And he didn’t exactly leave Phil oatmeal or cookies or whatever the hell it was brownies liked either so he didn’t know if someone else was doing it for the rest of them or what.

“Yeah, turns out Phil hates mess so he cleans even if we’re all dicks. Best discovery of the year. Also celestials don’t do weird shit so not every species is a TLC classic or a butt sniffer, just saying,” Peter says, grinning.

“First that werewolf thing is a rude stereotype. And two, we have to identify each other somehow,” Bucky admits somewhat sheepishly.

Peter squints, “you can’t look at each other’s faces to figure out who’s who?” he asks and Tony laughs despite himself.

“Doesn’t really work in wolf form when we all look the exact fuckin same, smartass. And contrary to popular belief usually women are the bigger ones and they _really_ don’t like being mistaken for dudes. So uh, unless you want to get eaten don’t make that mistake,” he says.

“Wow, I can’t believe you just defended sniffing someone’s ass,” Peter says, laughing.

“You built weird dick plants in your mom’s back yard so I don’t think you can judge anyone for their weird habits,” Tony tells Peter.

Bucky frowns, “what the fuck?” he asks, giving Peter a weird look. Right, he hadn’t been there for that conversation.

“Peter thinks his dick plants are cool instead of weird,” Tony tells him, snickering.

“You know what? I think I’m going to get my food and go back to my room,” he says, opening the fridge and taking out a slab of raw meat before walking off with it.

“Oh my _god_ , was that even cooked?” Peter asks, sticking his tongue out in disgust. Tony didn’t think so, which was just nasty.

*

Peter is mostly drawn to Tony and Rhodey’s room by the loud squawking but he stays to watch tiny dragon Tony battle it out with Rhodey for who is going to use the outlet his heat lamp was currently plugged into. “You’ve been under that thing for hours, I need the outlet! There are none on my side of the room!” Rhodey tells him. He goes to reach past Tony to unplug his lamp but Tony lets out a furious scream and jumps on Rhodey, who also screams and starts flailing his arms around. It does little good because Tony has claws and he’d dug into Rhodey’s clothing and he’s snarling like mad. To be fair Peter is pretty sure he’s snarling at Rhodey not to drop him because he obviously hadn’t thought his attack through but still.

He watches as the two of them struggle for a moment before he takes pity on Rhodey and decides to rescue him. “Alright,” he says as he walks in, “compromise.” He pulls Tony off of Rhodey, surprised by how light the small dragon was, and unplugs Tony’s lamp while he screams about it. “Jesus stop wiggling around, I _will_ drop you,” he threatens. “Now shut up because I’m taking you and your lamp to my room so you can lay under your lamp there and poor Rhodey doesn’t have to deal with you monopolizing all the outlets. That’s a total dick move, man,” he tells Tony.

“Thank you!” Rhodey says, rolling his eyes, “honestly, how much heat does a damn dragon need anyways?”

“Uh, like six hours a day actually and Tony definitely doesn’t get that,” he says. Most of the time Tony was out be it because he was in class, working in the school’s labs, or some other thing. So he could see why Tony was screaming about his damn lamp, but he didn’t see why he didn’t just tell Rhodey to use another damn outlet. Could have something to do with his inability to talk but that was no real excuse. He could gesture.

“Really? Oh. Well now I feel like an asshole,” Rhodey mumbles.

Peter shrugs and moves Tony around in his arms, ignoring the irritated grumbles from the dragon. “Whatever man, I only know that because I briefly dated a high maintenance dragon who tried to eat me. Was not fun,” he says. Why Tony didn’t just sleep under the damn lamp like a normal dragon would he had no idea but whatever, not his business.

“Huh. Well, its not like I’d know, technically I’m dead,” he says and Peter raises an eyebrow. “What? Tony didn’t tell you I’m a zombie?”

No he did the fuck not and Peter was interrogating his scaly ass as soon as he was stuck under that lamp in his room too. “No he didn’t and now I’m curious. I thought you guys were all… Walking Dead type things. No offense,” he throws out even though he knew it was offensive. Rhodey’s eye roll confirms it.

“No we aren’t, and we don’t eat live people either. Well I mean some zombies like fresh brains but I think they’re gross, fresh with life and all that. Nasty. Anyways we do not look like the bad special effects shit from the Walking Dead, Evil Dead, Night of the Living Dead, Zombieland, or literally any other zombie shit you see on TV. Well, Santa Clarita diet is sort of accurate but still,” he says, shaking his head. “Y’all know nothing about zombies.”

Yeah, no one knew anything useful about celestials either. Peter knew because when he googled them as a kid all he got was this weird comic book shit. “Yeah, humans suck and control the media for some reason, fuck those guys. Can you pass the lamp?” he asks. Rhodey sighs and hands Tony’s lamp over.

“I’m taking back the outlets,” he tells Tony and he plugs his phone into the newly freed plug.

Tony makes an annoyed noise at Rhodey and Peter carries him and his lamp out. “So,” he says to Tony as they go, “do they make giant heat lamps for dragons that aren’t smaller than the average house cat?” he asks. He swears and almost drops Tony when the little bastard _bites_ him.

*

Bucky finds Tony curled under a heat lamp in Peter’s room, which was weird because that wasn’t his room, but mostly because Peter was sleeping. That wouldn’t be super odd on its own but it was when Peter was floating mid air in what looked like a cocoon of energy. He decides to ignore that to go poke the adorably tiny dragon. “Hey,” he says, poking Tony in the side.

Tony is up and immediately snarling at Bucky, which was nothing short of hilarious though Tony didn’t seem to appreciate the laughs. “Cool your jets hot shot, I need some help with the stove. Something’s wrong with it and if I ask Phil for help again he threated to stop cleaning. None of us want that and you know it so get off your scaly ass and help me out,” he tells Tony. This earns him an annoyed squawk before Tony jumps off the table Peter had stuck his lamp on as he makes his way to the ground. “Uh, let me get you pants first, no need for indecent expos-“ his words are cut off by the sound of Peter falling to his mattress, bouncing off, and hitting the ground.

“Oh shit sorry, ow. Why are you here?” Peter asks Bucky.

“Broken stove,” he explains.

Peter looks annoyed and half asleep. “You don’t even cook your food, what the fuck?” he mumbles.

“I do so, I just prefer meat raw. Raw broccoli is disgusting,” he says.

“Raw broccoli is normal, raw steak is a sin against god,” Peter tells him.

“Well I’m an atheist so how about we all just shut up and Bucky, get me my pants. If you hit the wrong button on that stove and you woke me up for nothing I’ll cook _you_ for dinner,” Tony threatens.

“You have a birth mark on your left ass cheek,” Peter tells him.

“Thanks, I never knew my own ass cheek had a birth mark on it,” Tony says sarcastically and Bucky sighs.

*

For some stupid reason Peter decides to follow Tony and Bucky down to the kitchen, laughing when Bucky _was_ using the stove wrong. “Seriously?” Tony asks as he turns the dial and the damn element turns on. “I’m going to roast you.”

“With what? Your whole six inch ball of flame?” Peter asks, laughing.

“I’d rather you didn’t, werewolf hair is weirdly flammable. That was not something I wanted to find out to be honest,” he says. Yeah Tony could only imagine how that went.

“A six inch ball of blue flame can do some serious damage, I know because I burnt down my dad’s yacht once,” he says. It was mostly an accident and he paid for that and then some, but it was totally worth it when Howard whined and cried about all his stupid Captain America memorabilia on the boat. Fuck Captain America, the guy was a pompous asshole anyways but his asshole father probably loved the damn comic book character more than his own kid. And that was why he was down a yacht.

“You burnt down your dad’s yacht? _Why_?” Bucky asks, looking bewildered.

“He pissed me off,” Tony says truthfully, earning an even more bewildered look from Bucky.

“That is the most privileged white guy thing I’ve ever heard,” he says, shaking his head.

“Yeah well I got my ass beat for it so I guess it comes full circle into being shitty again anyways. Plus that boat was ugly as hell, I did him a favor,” he mumbles.

Bucky and Peter look uncomfortable but Peter decides to talk first. “So how long did it take to burn?” he asks.

“Like an hour and a half give or take,” he says. Thankfully someone thought to take the damn gas out of it before that blew up because the nearby mermaids would have been some pissed off about more ocean junk. They were probably already pissed about the burning boat not far from them.

“So… want some broccoli?” Bucky asks and Tony rolls his eyes.

“Vegetables are disgusting.”

*

Peter takes like fifty pictures because this was never going to happen again and it was _adorable_. “How did this happen?” he asks Steve, who was studying plants or some shit.

He looks over to where Bucky, as a wolf, was curled around Tony as a dragon. This shit should be in supernatural creature magazines it was so cute. “Oh. He’s black as a wolf so he thought the heat from his fur might make Tony more comfortable than just the sun. I don’t know, wolves do weird things. Do you know anything about rosemary?” he asks.

Peter shrugs, “nope but I can make it!” he says, excitedly growing Steve a rosemary plant, potted and all. Steve doesn’t even look impressed, which Peter thinks is just _rude_. How come no one else thought his celestial powers were as cool as he did? Maybe its because they all knew they were cool supernatural creatures with cool powers and he thought he was just human or something. All he knew was that he’s built some _weird_ shit but it was totally worth it. Even if Yondu made him take down that massive Pac-Man statue that was way cooler than his mom’s garden gnomes.

A small, disgruntled noise catches his attention and he looks down to find Tony waking up from his nap to find Bucky and all his fur surrounding him and instead of being grateful he pick up his dragon paw and smacks Bucky’s nose. “You’re an asshole as a dragon,” Peter tells him. Any other time he was cool, but as a dragon? Total dickhead.

Tony lets out an annoyed screech and Bucky lifts a paw and smacks him, ears flicking backward like the noise hurt his ears. Actually the noise probably _did_ hurt Bucky’s ears- werewolves had sensitive hearing. A fact Peter unfortunately already knew. Tony makes another annoyed noise at Bucky and takes a few steps away from him before his body shimmers a little and human Tony replaces retile Tony. “What the fuck was that for?” he asks, hands on his hips.

Steve looks over and makes a disgusted face, “do you ever bring clothes with you when you turn into a dragon or are you allergic to basic common sense?” he asks.

“Well I would be naked while I put my damn clothes on anyways, I’m not sparing you anything,” Tony points out. “And you, explain yourself,” he says to Bucky.

“I think your annoying noises hurt his ears,” Peter says and Bucky nods, rolling his eyes at the offended look on Tony’s face.

“Those are just normal dragon noises!” he says in his own defense.

“Maybe for something pint sized,” Peter tells him, laughing when Tony flips his off.

“Fine, _you_ do better you celestial fuckhead,” he says. Yeah, he was really gunna regret that when he found out celestials had shape shifting abilities.

*

Tony was pissed that Peter could turn into a dragon the size of the fucking house they were living in and he was bitter about it. “This outlet is now mine, I have stolen it, you can hoard all the other outlets. Please don’t tell me you hoard outlet space- I’ve met dragons that hoard some weird shit. Like mothballs, toilet paper roles, and middle children,” Rhodey says, drawing Tony’s attention.

He frowns, “no I don’t hoard outlets, I hoard invention designs and they’re stored digitally so they don’t take up space. Who the fuck did you meet that hoarded middle children though?” he asks. Everyone knew a dragon that hoarded weird shit except, go figure, the actual dragon. His mom’s charities were as weird as it got. Everyone else had a coin collection, comic book memorabilia, money, libraries full of books, and other things that most species found normal to collect. It was everyone _else_ who knew dragons who collected weird stuff, which led Tony to believe none of it was even true. If anyone knew dragons that hoarded weird stuff it would be another dragon.

“This random homeless guy with a gang of middle children. It was as weird as it sounded and they left me alone because they were afraid that as a zombie I’d eat them. Given that they were all _alive_ they didn’t need to worry but I wasn’t about to argue with them about zombie misconceptions. Point is- this outlet? Mine now,” he says, pointing at the only outlet close to his side of the room.

Tony rolls his eyes but lets Rhodey have the outlet because he didn’t really use it anyways. “Just don’t unplug my lamp, if I’m in Peter’s room everyone assumes they can bug me all the time.” Probably because he left his door open like a freak.

Rhodey sighs, “yeah, sorry about that. Do dragons actually need that much heat?” he asks.

“Why do you think so many of us live in tropical climates? Makes no sense to live elsewhere,” he says. What the hell dragons were doing in _Europe_ he had no idea. They barely even got sun let alone actual heat.

“Why don’t you live in a tropical climate, it’s not like you can’t afford it,” he says.

True, but Tony chose to go to MIT so here he was. Plus his father had a weird attachment to New York though Tony was partial to Italy, which made sense given that he’s Italian but no. Howard like New York. “Don’t have much of a choice, this is where my family lives,” he points out. “Given the chance I’d live in Italy.”

“I’d live about a hundred years into the future when black people weren’t getting shot by the cops all the time _and_ when humans finally figure out that zombies don’t work like that,” Rhodey says and Tony snorts.

“Well, I’m the villain in fairy tales just because humans don’t like lizards basically. And why do they always have to kill us? It’s always ‘slay the dragon!’ Or there’s whatever the fuck Tolkien and Game of Thrones did. We don’t _hatch_ , that is so not how _any_ kind of dragon works,” he says, shaking his head.

Rhodey frowns, “there are different kinds of dragons?” he asks and that just hurts Tony’s heart.

“Yeah. We’re generally associated with the elements- obviously my element is fire given that I can breath it. And Game of Thrones at least got _that_ right- if you’re a dragon whose element is fire you can’t be burned. Don’t know what that dragon queen shit was though. But there are water dragons and dragons who are more associated with air- they can fly. Which is totally stupid given that that’s _all_ they can do.” Personally he thought he got the best deal out of al the dragon types considering breathing fire and being naturally fire resistant was totally _awesome_ though being able to breath underwater would also be kind of cool.

“No earth dragons?” Rhodey asks and Tony rolls his eyes.

“What would they do, burrow under ground? No there’s no earth dragons,” he says.

“Well sue me for not knowing that, I too have been poorly educated by human pop culture. Who even let them be in charge? They’re a minority,” Rhodey says, rolling his eyes.

“Yeah, but Europe tried to kill everything supernatural that one time so everyone collectively decided fighting humans wasn’t worth it,” Tony says. Most notably they killed witches, but vampires and werewolves were also high on their target list. Tony would _love_ to see someone try and burn him alive given that it wouldn’t happen, _plus_ he had low-level control over fire. Suffice to say trying to burn him would do little more than amuse him but dragons weren’t well known or on anyone’s radar at that time.

“Yeah, humans are always on about how dangerous we all are but they’re always the ones starting genocides. Except for celestials, they suck as much as humans basically,” Rhodey says. Knowledge of them as a species was new and still not well known but when they first came into contact with aliens they brought news of the species that wasn’t pleasant given their god-like powers and their tendency to kill whole planets for no reason that anyone knew of.

“Except Peter, he’s okay even if we have a seventeen foot statue of Skeletor in our front yard that he refuses to take down because it isn’t violating any city codes,” Tony says. All things considered they lucked out there, Peter could have been a total maniac.

“Please burn that thing down. Natasha and I were talking about it, you took down a yacht in like an hour and a half, you could have that whole Skeletor burned in a half an hour at _most_ ,” he says and Tony laughs.

“I’m not burning down Skeletor. Don’t look at me like that, it’s right by the house and I don’t want to risk not being able to contain the fire,” he says. It was logical, plus he kind of liked Skeletor.

“I’ll risk it because Skeletor us ugly as hell, plus our room is on the other side of the house,” he says. Tony snorts and shakes his head because that was _dramatic_.

*

“So the dragon is the side of a house cat?” some Asian guy asks Bucky, frowning.

“Excuse you I am larger than a _house cat_ ,” Tony tells him.

Bucky snorts, “wow, you’re so convinced of that you didn’t actually react like that was a lie,” he says. Tony flips him off.

“It _isn’t_ a lie, the average house cat weights ten to twelve pounds, I weight seventeen pounds. Unless you have an obese as hell cat I’m not smaller than it,” he says. He _checked_ this shit because he was not about to be shown up but an adorable fuzzy creature. It was bad enough that a capybara easily outstripped him in size and weight when the fucking thing was technically a rodent.

The Asian guy laughs, “oh my _god_ you’re that small? I didn’t know dragons came in mini,” he says.

“Is it really necessary for all of you to tell everyone that?” he asks Bucky.

He grins, “Natasha tells everyone you’re the size of a dog just so that you’ll be _extra_ shamed when people find out that you’re even smaller than that,” he says.

Yeah, fuck Natasha. “Is she still trying to convince me that elves aren’t automatically dickheads? Because she’s doing a piss poor job,” Tony says.

“Dude you could fit Tony in your sweater pocket,” the Asian guy says, gesturing to Bucky’s sweater that Tony was rather ashamed to admit he probably would fit in.

“Oh my god I should try it,” Bucky says, looking at his pocket excitedly.

“If I find that sweater in the laundry room I’m burning it,” Tony tells him. With that he turns on his heel, sticks his nose in the air, and walks off.

“I’m Jim Morita by the way!” Bucky’s friend calls after him. Another fucking James? Honestly everyone liked to joke about him hoarding weird things but this fucking house seemed to hoard James’.

*

Tony is downstairs late using the living room Steve has taken over with his stupid planets that Phil obviously cleaned around watching TV because he couldn’t sleep. Phil was in the kitchen doing his brownie thing and cleaning the space at night as per brownie usual. Peter shows up halfway through him watching Ocean’s Eleven and all but throws himself on the couch, curling his legs underneath himself in that familiar way he had. Making himself at home clearly wasn’t an issue for him because he acted like that everywhere he went.

“You like bad action movies? Same,” Peter says.

“They’re all shitty,” Tony says back because it wasn’t wrong.

“True, but I would die for those Fast and Furious guys,” Peter says.

“Dwayne Johnston is probably the most pure man alive,” Tony says. The guy was just too nice. And pretty. Tony was suspicious because what did this shit planet do to deserve him?

They continue watching the movie for some time before Peter speaks again. From his observations Peter seemed almost as uncomfortable with silence as Tony was, which was nice because Peter didn’t think his trying to fill the silence was some kind of weird arrogance or whatever. “Anyone ever tell you how weirdly pretty you are?” he asks.

Tony squints at him because ‘pretty’ wasn’t the adjective he usually got. “No, can’t say I’ve been called ‘pretty’ before,” he says honestly.

“Who the fuck is depriving you from telling you of your beauty? I wanna fight them,” Bucky says, appearing at the bottom of the stairs looking as bewildered by the world around him as he always did. Apparently he used to be super confident but then he and Steve got into a nasty car accident that took his arm, his self confidence, and his general happiness though Tony appreciated his weird sense of humor now. Unless it was about Tony being a pocket sized dragon, then it was annoying.

“Wow, thanks for telling me I’m pretty guys. Usually I got, sexy, that kind of thing,” he says and Peter gives him a _look_.

“Your supposed never being told you’re pretty was an _adjective_ disagreement? Seriously?” he asks.

“Now I wanna fight Tony,” Bucky says. “So what are you guys watching I can’t sleep and whatever action is playing on this thing is all I can hear upstairs,” Bucky tells them, walking over to the couch and throwing himself on it, ignoring Peter And Tony’s annoyed protests when he lays across them both. “It’s a werewolf thing, deal with it. Actually you don’t need to, I can move if you’re uncomfortable,” he says a little sheepishly but Tony shrugs.

“I don’t really care, my whining was mostly to be an ass,” Tony tells him.

“Yeah mine too unless you’re furry. Dog hair makes me sneeze,” Peter says and Bucky gives him a deeply offended look.

“I’m not a fucking dog!” he snaps. Tony purposefully looks anywhere but at the pissed off werewolf in his lap and Peter because that was actually pretty rude- werewolves didn’t much like being compared to dogs for what were probably obvious reasons.

“Whatever man, animal hair makes me sneeze and technically wolves are in the canine family okay, it’s not racist its true,” he says in his defense, which even Tony knew was a bad defense.

“Werewolves and actual wolves have no fucking relation!” Bucky snaps at him.

“Don’t you share like twenty five percent of your DNA?” Peter asks.

“WE share fifty percent of our DNA with _bananas_ , that’s really not a good measure of relation,” Tony tells him.

“Yeah, we share fifty percent of our DNA with bananas, do I look like I have a yellow fucking peel to you?” Bucky asks.

“No but you can peel back that attitude,” Peter tells him and Tony starts laughing, earning an annoyed look from Bucky.

“What? It was funny. Peter, Bucky isn’t a dog and has no real relation to wolves, canines, and technically shares fifty percent of his DNA with a banana so suggesting his looking kind of like a wolf you’d see in a forest is rude at best and racist at worst. Can we go back to how pretty I am?” he asks, earning a snort from Peter and Bucky.

“Fine but only because I’m actually jealous your eyelashes are that thick,” Bucky says. “Natasha and I had a running bet on whether or not you wear eye liner and mascara but you were really good at hiding it but we were both wrong and Phil won the bet.” Tony squints because he didn’t give a single thought to his eyelashes.

“That’s what you freaks pay attention to? Dude, his ass is fantastic,” Peter says.

Tony shakes his head, “that’s more what I was expecting.”

“That’s objectifying,” Bucky says, frowning.

“Is not. You objectified his eyelashes,” Peter says and Tony bursts out laughing.

“You two are fucking ridiculous,” he tells them.

They seem to accept it and continue watching the movie they were all lost in now, including Tony despite having seen it like five hundred times. “You do have a superb ass though,” Bucky says after awhile and Peter lets out a loud _ha_ when he says it, obviously vindicated.

*

Bucky drops the toaster in front of Tony looking lost and confused. “What the hell is this?” he asks.

Peter, who was relaxing across the table reading some shit in an alien language, leans forward in interest. Tony ignores him in favor of the toaster. Bucky always seemed to be breaking something or another and thanks to Tony’s engineering skills he was now everyone’s freaking fix it guy. He should have kept his mouth shut about his skills like Rhodey, who basically ran if there was even a hint of Bucky doing something wrong with technology.

“It’s a broken toaster,” Bucky says like that wasn’t obvious.

“If this thing just needs the crumb drawer emptied I am going to be so pissed,” Tony tells him. Just as a precaution he pulls the drawer out and, to his surprise, a fucking _mouse_ falls out, hits the table, and takes off running. He, Bucky, and Peter watch as the mouse runs off before managing a three way glance.

“You’re still thinking of making toast with the mouse toaster aren’t you?” he asks Bucky, who gives the toaster a longing look. “You disgust me,” Tony says.

“I feel like toast and I’m not picky about mice like some pretentious dragons,” Peter says, laughing when Tony gives him an offended look.

“See, some people know toast is worth the side of mice,” Bucky tells him and Tony wrinkles his nose.

“You two are disgusting but I guess Peter is basically immortal so he wont die of mouse shit poisoning,” Tony says. “But know that you two are nasty.”

Bucky laughs and sure enough the mouse in the crumbs was what caused the problem so he and Peter get to eat their toast in peace. Natasha comes in several minutes later, notes Peter and Bucky eating toast, and immediately beelines for the toaster, picking up Tony’s bread. He considers telling her about the mouse but since she decided to grab his bread he leaves it be, exchanging a look with Bucky and Peter as he does. They both start laughing and Natasha gives them a suspicious look, demanding to know what Tony did to his bread. Unfortunately for her she assumed the _bread_ was the problem, not the toaster. And since she grabbed Rhodey’s bagels next Tony still keeps his mouth shut.

*

Natasha watches Bucky, Peter, and Tony all argue about Peter’s latest stupid sculpture in the front yard. “When they hell did they become a thing?” she asks Rhodey, who seemed like a viable person to ask because Tony liked him second best after Peter and Bucky. Maybe even first best considering he still chose to live with Rhodey even though he could have taken over Peter’s space without him complaining.

“I don’t know but his lamp is in Peter’s room so I took over that outlet too,” Rhodey says. Natasha rolls her eyes because she didn’t care about their weird battle over the outlets in their room she cared about figuring out when Peter, Bucky, and Tony became a _thing_ because they were clearly a thing. Even if they didn’t know it.

“Why’s he still live in your room, he’s basically in Peter’s all the time,” she says.

“Apparently Peter does some weird floating shit when he sleeps and it annoys Tony. And Bucky produces a weird volume of hair, which I have proof of because it’s all over our room and he’s literally never stepped foot in there,” he says. Yeah, Natasha had Bucky hair all over her room too and try as he might Phil couldn’t keep up with the sheer amount of hair Bucky produced.

“Ten bucks says they don’t know they’re dating,” she says.

Rhodey gives her a weird look, “they _aren’t_ dating,” he says.

“They have late night dates with bad action movies at least once a week, Tony’s stopped screeching at Bucky for curling up with him when they’re a dragon and a wolf respectively, and neither of them care about Peter’s weird fucking sculptures in the front yard. Dating,” she says. Only someone who was dating Peter could ever not care about his ugly ass topiaries or his ugly ass sculptures.

“Okay you kind of make a point there,” Rhodey says, nodding. “Do you think we should tell them?” he asks.

“So they can make out everywhere? No leaving them clueless is what’s best for all of us. And god knows what weird sex shit Peter is into, poor Phil doesn’t need more mess to clean up.” He probably had his hands full with Natasha’s mess. People liked to claim elves were clean but if it weren’t for Phil things would be growing in her room.

“Yeah, but if they know they’re dating maybe they won’t show favoritism to Peter’s ugly sculptures and they’ll tell him to take them down,” Rhodey reasons.

“You think Peter would listen to them? He definitely wouldn’t,” she says. Peter Quill was a stubborn asshole; there was no way he’d take anyone’s advice on his ugly Power Rangers sculptures. Or his weird vagina topiaries. Or at least they looked like vaginas.

“Tony’s stubborn enough to convince him, we fought for a good hour about those outlets and honestly he won that,” Rhodey says, shaking his head and looking as dumbfounded as he should. First of all Natasha would have just take over the damn outlets, and second of all who fought for an hour over outlets? Idiots that’s who. Rhodey should have just left Tony’s lamp alone and took over every other damn plug like a proper petty person would do.

“Just unplug everything and plug your stuff in, honestly. And I’m not chancing it, let them be dumb and figure it out on their own,” she says. “Maybe they’ll decide the statues are hideous anyways.” That was doubtful considering they both made extensive snapchat stories using Peter’s weird creations but she could hope. Phil was certainly hoping, he’s tried cutting down the vagina topiaries but the damn things were sentient and they grabbed his scissors and tried to cut _him_ down. Needless to say Peter, Bucky, and Tony were the only ones who thought those things were acceptable.

*

Rhodey didn’t care that Tony took over most of the outlets, and he didn’t care that he tracked all of Bucky’s hair into their room, and he didn’t even care that he had a weird habit of sleeping with the door open after spending so much time with Peter, but _this_ he drew the line at.

“Alright _no_ , you three need to go,” he says, waving his arm around at Tony, Bucky, and Peter lounging on Tony’s bed watching something on the small TV sitting on Tony’s desk. It had replaced his heat lamp _and_ the damn outlet Rhodey had unsuccessfully tried to take over.

All three stare at him like he’s spoken a language they didn’t know, which he thought was _rude_ because he damn well knew that Tony knew a stupid amount of languages and Peter had a knack for picking them up. Even if he _did_ speak a weird language Peter at least would know what he was saying. “You heard me, out you all go,” he says, making shooing motions at them.

“This is my room too,” Tony points out.

“You hoard all the damn outlets, _I_ get to decide what bad action movies play in here and _that_ ” he points at the screen- “has Sylvester Stallone in it and therefore it, and the three of you, are officially banned from this space unless you’re going to let me join and we’re going to watch Mrs. Congeniality.”

Peter is the first to laugh, “Mrs. Congeniality?” he asks.

“It’s a good movie okay? Better than anything with Sylvester Stallone in it.” He had given up basically immediately when Stallone’s first line was ‘freedom!’ while jumping from a helicopter. Bucky starts laughing next and Rhodey gives Tony a _look_ because he better not laugh. He knew how much Tony loved _Wonder Woman_ and while he didn’t think that was a bad thing he damn well knew Peter and Bucky would laugh.

“That’s now even a good movie, obviously you haven’t watched Mean Girls or Legally Blonde,” Bucky says, taking that in a totally different direction than Rhodey expected.

“I’m partial to John Tucker Must Die,” Tony says.

“Two all have shit taste in movies, Paranormal Activity is clearly the best movie ever made,” Peter says, earning a wrinkled nose from everyone in the room. “Why are you all making those faces, I’m right.”

“Okay you know what, you two can deal with your demented boyfriend elsewhere Sylvester Stallone is banned from this room and I am taking back the damn outlets,” he tells them.

*

Tony, Bucky, and Peter all sit at the kitchen table. “What gave him the impression we’re dating?” he asks, handing Bucky his bagel to take a bite out of it.

“Well the fact that you’re currently sharing food with each other is pretty gay,” Steve says, making a rare appearance.

“Don’t you have plants to go fuck?” Tony asks, still bitter that Steve’s stupid hanging plants were blocking out that sunspot by the window that he liked. Steve flips him off.

“I share food with people all the time,” Bucky mumbles around the bagel.

“You literally growled at Morita when he tried to steal a chip from you last week, you do not share food with everyone,” Steve says.

“Okay fine, they’re dating but I’ve got nothing to do with it,” Tony says.

Steve rolls his eyes, “sure, and he never goes to you to fix all his tech problems even though Clint, Phil, and especially Rhodey are all just as capable and complain a lot less than you,” he says.

Peter raises an eyebrow, “okay fine but what’s the thing Tony and I have?” he asks, clearly looking to prove Steve’s theory wrong.

“You mean aside from late night bad movie dates, letting him take up half your desk with his heat lamp, and spending ridiculous amounts of time together?” he asks sarcastically. “Oh, nothing.”

Bucky looks between Tony and Peter, “oh my god he’s right. Are we dating?” he asks.

“Yes now please convince Peter to get rid of the giant oak tree hand thing that’s flipping the neighbors off, they don’t like it,” Steve tells them, grabbing a container from the fridge and walking off with it.

“That’s my meatloaf,” Bucky says sadly, giving the direction Steve took off in a sad look.

Peter wrinkles his nose, “please tell me it was cooked meatloaf,” he says.

“Who cares? All meatloaf is nasty meatloaf.” Tony wrinkles his nose. No matter how hard his mom, his nannies, and on one particularly shitty occasion his father tried he refused to eat meatloaf.

“It wouldn’t matter anyways, pixies eat a diet that’s almost all raw meat,” Bucky tells them. Peter and Tony exchange a look that accurately displays the horror they both feel knowing that fact about pixies. And here Tony thought they only got people lost in forests and shit.

**Author's Note:**

> [My writing Tumblr](https://tenspencerriedplease.tumblr.com/)


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